26 November 2006

More quirky art links

Robert J. Lang's Origami pushes the boundaries of origami towards paper sculpture. I'd like to use book pages for the art, and then put it into carved openings in the altered book that originally contained that page.

Another folded project currently appears at the c 7 11 23 webpage, which then links to the Nothing New archive. I'll return there to see what's behind the links; what I looked at during my first visit... well, it looked interesting.

Nava Lubelski's The Starving Artist's Way is a clever title, and the website offers instructions for several very simple, innovative, art projects. These are the kinds of ideas that I collect, and then radically adapt to totally different projects, often with different materials.

I love the simplicity and design of some of Lorenzo Mattotti's illustrations and fine art. These figures are likely to spark ideas for art dolls... I'm just not sure what, yet. I just know that, when I saw these figures, something clicked in my brain and the images got filed in the "for art dolls" section of my brain.

Oh my! I'd forgotten that Dale Chihuly's website is full of juicy colors and textures in glass. His art is amazing, which is high praise since I'm generally not a big fan of art glass. I'm aghast and impressed when I see something like his Fireworks of Glass work. I mean, I can't even think in these terms, and the size of these pieces... breathtaking!

Erika Thorpe's 5 doors down features a very artistic site design, plus some inspiring mixed media and digital art. I especially like her precise use of color in contrast with monochromatic (or limited palette) areas. Very cool, and her sense of texture and dimension--in two-dimensional work--is superb. I'm reminded of Dave McKean's work, in a way, but... this is very different as well.

And... ooh, ooh! I found another free font site! Betterfonts.com I've seen many of these 10,000 free fonts before, but some are new (and wonderful) and I especially like the site layout. It's very user friendly!

22 November 2006

Intriguing & inspiring links

I regularly look for interesting links. Some of them are clearly art-related, but others aren't. They all get mixed in my brain during the coming days & weeks, and I never know what will emerge as art. Here's what I found intriguing this morning. (Remember, I said intriguing. I don't necessarily like these sites, but they give me something to think about and may later influence my art.)

Many of these sites use Flash:

Banksy's sketches and installments are somewhat quirky. I like how the website is organised; it's very simple, but still interesting.

Conclave Obscurum is creepy but features an innovative--almost compelling--website design. I'll be looking at this website often. I don't know that I'd have much of this art on my walls, but... gosh, this is fascinating!

By contrast, gallery.artofgregmartin.com isn't especially easy to navigate, but the photography shows an intriguing approach and use of Photoshop. I may try more b&w photography, to see where this leads me. And, I may also try some different angles & treatments of my existing photos, especially my cemetery pictures.

I have no idea what to think of NobodyHere, but... it's quirky in a very weird way. I'll go back and study it more, later. For example, try some of the ecards; see what happens when you type your own message into the shell one.

explodingdog 2006 is an innovative approach to illustration. I hope that he does very, very well with this idea. Mostly, I like the childlike simplicity of his work, and the apparent spontaneity of it. This is definitely going to be an influence in some of my upcoming art.

The Blipfestival sounds amazing. From their webpage: "...a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit videogame consoles and home computers used as creative tools..."

21 November 2006

What's arriving

For the past year or so, I've posted my LiveJournal blog entries here. Now, it's time to make some changes. This page will be its own, different blog, with a focus on links to cool and inspiring websites, events, and new art products that I'm using.

In other words, if you want insights into where my art is going, that's what'll be here. (Even I may not realize how these inspirations, materials, and techniques will influence my upcoming art.)

Right now, I'm making several broad changes at Aisling.net, though most won't be obvious for awhile. The website design (template) will change, and this will be far more of an online gallery of my artwork.

Meanwhile, if you're looking for the kinds of entries that were here--most of them were personal and only loosely related to my art--they're still at LiveJournal for now. (I'm making changes there, too.)